Here we go:

QuoteNo, guys.

You aren´t debating the important stuff. Here are important things, that I think are way more productive to talk about.

QuoteThe basic flaw is that gamers want different kinds of things. This is bullshit.

A game has many dimensions, roleplaying games have several dimensions of being fun.
 
 People are multi-dimensional, too. They want it all at once.

Creative Agendas are the concept that screws Forgertalk from the ground up. A person wants multiple facets, some of them at the same time, some of them on a different day, humans are inconsequential and complex. Shoeboxing their leisure needs does actually harm the understanding one of the most complex and multi-faceted games that exists.

QuoteYou can´t possibly have all at once at the same time.

In a D&D game, you might want the thrill of combat as well as a secure emotional reassuring social experience. That can be had in the same evening, but not in the very same round of combat, if your character is to die because of bad luck for example.
 

QuoteSo the DM has to set priorities, as long as every aspect is incorporated in some way, the game is functioning and will go on.

That´s where different DMing styles come from. Most people game with a DM they know, not with the DM of their preferrential choice.

QuoteThe theory is flawed for several other reasons. For example, even if a person had a set of preferences etched in stone, nearly 99% game what they know, because they know it.

Other Arguments unconnected to the ones above to follow!

QuoteThere is no fully-informed market in RPGs.
There´s not even a fully-informed market on ways how to play RPGs.

Self explanatory? The connection to the Forgers: They say you can draw conclusions at the preferences from a persons uttered experiences. Whereas this implies free choice. Free choice does not exist in any statistical meaningful way in this niche hobby: you game what you know, because you know it with the people you know. totally a satisfizer, not even a carricature of a hommo oeconomicus.

QuoteSo the choices made are an artifact of exposure and random chance.

And your choices can´t be any pointers to your preferences.

QuoteYou might want to check out something real instead.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_studies

What Wil said.
 

QuoteAlso seek out the four dimensions of fun in games:

Roger Caillois
1958
 „Agon“ = Competition (e.g. Football)
 „Alea“ = Chance (e.g. Roulette)
 „Mimikry“ = Identity-Play (e.g. let´s pretend Mama-Papa-Child, theatre)
 „Ilinx“ = Inebriation (Rollercoaster, Swing on the playground)

See how RPGs have the power to combine three or all four dimensions, and see why people who can make them work can be "addicted for a lifetime.

I tried to clear that up upthread. My main point is: every respectable scientist working on human motivations and fun acknowledges the multi-dimensionality of human experiences.

QuoteBeing only into Mimikry is counter-civilizatory, as it defeats the purpose and strength of RPGs =

To cater for most dimensions at the same instant of playing! Compare Roulette to D&D, and you´ll see why D&D is the more wholesome experience. Roulette is more "coherent" for sure, but it is the weaker design, the primitive version.

Thematic gaming is a step backward in RPGs and actually destroying the main selling point and advance that RPGs stand for: To be a game that achieves a combination of all four major game elements in a small timeframe and a common reference element. There is no need for Mimikry-specialist RPGs, because human societies have had Mimikry games for tenthousand years.

Sideswipe at the concept of "coherent" game design. "Incoherence" is what makes RPGs great, set them apart from most all other games. And that´s why they are one of the most difficult to run successfully. That´s why it´s always a small population playing RPGs. Only so many people [= the percentage of people playing RPGs in the eighties might be the demographic maximum] can make the magic of "all four" work.
Less imaginative and able people are bound to experience the four funs in a seperated, downwashed way, like the football player, Roulette or the Thematic Gamer [just being a dick here].

They exchange wholesomeness for a more extreme and thorough dollop of fun at hand.

This is all well and fine [honestly, let individual people have fun anyway they like], but RPGs are not neccessary for this [use them if you must]. RPGs are wholesome, this is their point. Using RPGs for something unwholesome is thusly a telltale for a fixation on RPG as a leisure medium, where other media and games would just be fine.

Take "It was a mutual decision". We´ve played party games along those line for thousands of years. To make it into an RGP is pretty pointless, except for an RPG-fixated audience.

And that would not be bad [it can even be fun, a blast of unwholesome fun], would they not draw conclusions and general "insight" on all RPGs, where they do not even grok the basic mission and quality of RPGs ].

This more clear?

EDITED

Quote from: SettembriniNo, guys.

The basic flaw is that gamers want different kinds of things. This is bullshit.
A game has many dimensions, roleplaying games have several dimensions of being fun.

People are multi-dimensional, too. They want it all at once.

You can´t possibly have all at once at the same time.

So the DM has to set priorities, as long as every aspect is incorporated in some way, the game is functioning and will go on.

I don't know if you were responding to me, or just to the thread in general, but we're both saying the same thing here.  Generally, people want the whole package as the elements of game, existing in a fictional world, and storytelling are all parts of the appeal of the entertainment form.  But everyone (not just the DM) has priorities of which are more important to their entertainment.  Some are more interested in one area than the others.  They DO want different things.

Forge theory has it backwards in the idea that "focused" RPGs are more fun than "unfocused" RPGs.

Edit: Oh, and looking at successful RPGs, it's clear that the best general mix for a published RPG is an emphasis on Gamism and Simulationism and let Narrativism be the exclusive province of people playing the game.  This is another instance where Forge theory has everything backwards.

Yes. It is. It's actually pretty much fucking crystal clear, and makes a great deal of sense.

A word, though - 'wholesome' might be inappropriate. That conveys something more like a combination of innocence and home-cooked meals. Norman Rockwell paints some wholesome shit. You might be looking for something more like "comprehensive", suggesting "inclusive of all parts of the whole". Easy mistake.

I think Gabriel nailed it for the most part, too.

GNS makes sense to me if you say "those are three elements of RPGs that people find fun to varying degrees". Sure, I'll buy that, if the words mean what the dictionary says. But then it gets into creative agendas and becomes a bit biased. The terms to describe aspects of RPGs aren't as useful for describing player types. I think it may be overly simplistic to think players mainly want one of three things from RPGs. So for me, the theory starts out good, but promptly hits a brick wall. Since everything that follows is about "creative agendas" and "coherant games", It becomes a dogma based on a faulty premise.

So we are all in the same boat!
Nice.

We´ve found out, that reflecting on fun-sources is productive. But the whole emancipation of the Forge from the usenet times was based on CA-seperation.
It was intellectually a stillborn.

In Threefold days, you had a triangle. That´s already a broken model, as not all things are on an axis of exchange. But GNS is built on CA, and that´s just pure bullshit. Harmful bullshit.

On the axis of exchange: The only person feeling the axises of exchange are the GMs: they must decide which mode to take. If they want fairness, they´ll have to thow out dramatic structure once in a while. Or vice versa.

But neither the players, nor the GMs needs and preferences are actually on an axis of exchange. They can be a hundred in any corner of the nonexistant triangle!

I think bringing Caillois into the discussion is an interesting idea. Finally, in face of all the trashy fifth-rate hacks usually cited by Forgists, we're dealing with a real intellectual. If with a problematic one, to put it mildly. But it's a nice change.

Having said that, I don't think Caillois can be reconciled with what economists call game theory. I can hear him rotate in his grave right about now. I should be surprised if he addresses it anywhere in his work. It's been a while since I read that one, but IIRC games are what bring a society down, not what keep it going.

PS: Yep, quick look at the amazon blurb yielded this gem: play is "an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill, and often of money."

Since I'm a Bataille expert, that pleases me. But your typical economist wouldn't dig that at all.

QuoteBut your typical economist wouldn't dig that at all.

We could discuss that at length, to my pleasure and civilizations win.

But instead we have to talk about Prof. Bat-a-Wang´s dabblings in the humanitites. Im angry at Ron on an intellectual level, he cost us the better part of five years.

BTW, game theory is mathematics.

Economists look awed and let themselves be inspired by that stuff.

Game theory is not as important as you might think in RPGs:

Game theory is about decision making strategies, not about individual motivations.

Quote from: SettembriniBut instead we have to talk about Prof. Bat-a-Wang´s dabblings in the humanitites. Im angry at Ron on an intellectual level, he cost us the better part of five years.

Would anybody care to hear my views on evolution theory?

I promise to use only terms that were either made up by myself or retrieved from  nineteenth-century discourse.

That is the coolest thing you said so far.
And I know you want to sound cool, you´re always trying.

But this time, you just totally "Fonzed" out.

Quote from: SettembriniBTW, game theory is mathematics.

Economists look awed and let themselves be inspired by that stuff.

Game theory is not as important as you might think in RPGs:

Game theory is about decision making strategies, not about individual motivations.

Oh I realize that...it's definitely not perfect fit. My thing hasn't been so much the mathematical analysis itself, but where it starts - by defining games. In that respect, it offers a decent foundation. There's no doubt that some portion of rpg theory is going to be from scratch - game theory for video games is the same way, because the medium is so new. But that doesn't mean ignoring related work that others have done if it can be leveraged.

Quote from: SettembriniThat is the coolest thing you said so far.
And I know you want to sound cool, you´re always trying.

But this time, you just totally "Fonzed" out.

As Caillois would put it: Are you inebriated?

QuoteAs Caillois would put it: Are you inebriated?

Who are you to care?
and more importantly:

are you?

Me? I am intoxicated. Intoxicated by the soaring flight of ideas that's carrying me on its wings towards a blinding sun called insight.

In other words, I've written two full pages today. For an academic that's spectacular.

Admittedly, they may be shit.

You got me interested.

Why are you overseas, why did you play Junta with Ole van Boyzd, what are you writing right now?

PM will suffice.